Charles Ginn (son of William of Farnham - post of 19th January 2014) was a direct descendant of the William Ginn of Great Hormead (d. 1568) mentioned in my post of 26th June. The guy intrigues me because I have never traced his burial, and likely never will.
Charles was one of nine adult brothers, four of whom died abroad. Some of the stories are fascinating and will be told in due course. He is also one of a number of Hertfordshire descended Ginn family members to be transported.
Charles was born in Farnham in Essex in 1811. It seems clear that as he got into his teens young Charlie became something of a juvenile delinquent. Whether this had something to do with the loss of his mother in 1827 is unknown, though I am probably being charitable. It may just be the fact that the creation of a national police force (in 1827) prematurely ended Charlie's criminal career in its tracks - it apparently did for a large number.
In the Spring of 1828 Charles Ginn was 16. He was caught stealing for the first time, the first time he was caught that is. Both he and his brother William (there on a separate matter) appeared before the Magistrates at the Chelmsford Quarter Sessions that Easter. The Indictment survives, but I will let the Chelmsford Chronicle tell the tale:
Charles Ginn, aged 15, was convicted of stealing seven rabbits, the property of Thomas Warman, otherwise Halden, at Farnham.
The prosecutor, a boy about 12 years of age, stated that he kept rabbits, and on the 6th of April he had 2 does and 5 young ones which he saw safe in the barn that evening. On the following morning, when he went for the purpose of feeding them, they were missing. They were worth 5s. William Barker stated that he lived at Bishop's Stortford - on the 31st March the prisoner came to him and asked him if he would buy a doe and five young rabbits, which the prisoner said were at his brother's. Witness told him he would, but never saw anything of the prisoner until about 7th April, when about 4 o'clock in the morning, he brought them to witness's house; witness remarked that it was a singular time to bring them and did not then get up to let him in. The artful young thief said that he had brought them so early because he wanted to get back to the Fair, which was held that day. Witness got up about an hour afterwards, and found the prisoner had been waiting all that time at his door; he bought them for 3s. when asked before the Magistrates what had become of the seventh rabbit, only six being accounted for, he [Ginn] said that he had eaten it. The prisoner was obstinately dumb throughout the trial. He was sentenced to three weeks in the Convict Gaol with hard labour, and to be whipped at the expiration of the first fortnight.
Those readers skilled in jurisprudence might well be asking themselves what would have happened if Charlie had eaten all the evidence; doubtless he did too.
Unfortunately Charles was not deterred, being convicted again in 1829 and, as a result, being sentenced to transportation to the Australian Colonies for 14 years.
Charles went out to Sydney on the "Adrian" in 1830. On arrival Charlie was originally sent to Hyde Park Barracks (above) then assigned as a farm labourer to a Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Shadforth of Sydney. This chap had some two dozen or so convicts assigned to him and I have discovered was wounded in the Peninsular War and settled in Sydney with his wife and family in 1830 or so, acquiring an estate of some 650 acres called “Ravenswood” at Mulgoa a rural area just outside Sydney then and now a rural suburb of that city. Shadforth became quite a prominent figure in Sydney life
Athough originally not settling in (Charles and a fellow convict escaped from a convict work gang in 1832 led by a William Sharvin in Sydney and engaged in building a bridge there - Charles was at large for several months and had to be recaptured)
he was still working for Shadforth when the 1837 Convict Muster was taken and Mulgoa was developing while Charles was working there, the convicts being used on several large estates, some of which survive, as does the church, consecrated in 1838.
In 1839 Charlie was granted his long awaited Ticket of Leave, effectively release on parole. He could now spend the rest of his sentence working for whomsoever he liked, for wages, though the ticket had to be renewed annually, and the slightest transgression might lead to its cancellation. Charlie apparently had not learned anything by his transportation and immediately returned to petty crime, being known to be in Berrima Jail at this time (below). He was subsequently convicted of larceny yet again and in 1840 was sentenced to three years in prison "in irons".
He was transferred from Berrima to the notorious Towrang Stockade in south NSW where he spent two years in hell. The Stockade was used for largely the tougher criminal and was the NSW equivalent of Port Arthur in Tasmania. The convicts were largely kept in irons most of the time, were ten to a room, sleeping on bare boards with a blanket. There were two notorious floggers there, the convicts receiving many lashes for the slightest transgression and one flogger subsequently being murdered by Ticket of Leave men. The convicts were used in chain gangs building the Great South Road from Sydney to Goulburn. Little of Towrang Stockade survives as it was largely demolished in 1843 but below I upload a picture of the bridge from 1839 which still stands, there is also a small cemetery.
He left Towrang Stockade for Hyde Park Barracks in 1842 and was a year there, completing his transportation sentence in 1843 and being granted his Certificate of Freedom that year. He was then 32. He now had to remain within the Australian Colonies, but subject to that was a free man.
Berrima Jail is scarcely changed
Charlie was barely free before he got up to his old habits yet again and the greater part of the 1840s were spent in and out of jail, largely at Parramatta below.
He obviously subsequently became something of a hobo/down and out in Sydney as in 1855 he was in jail again for petty crime, this time Darlinghurst below which in part is still there. He thus completed his tour of just about every jail in New South Wales.
We lose Charlie from here, no further records of him have been found, he was then 44. The contemporary newpaper record suggests below he was near destitute.
CENTRAL POLICE COURT.-WEDNESDAY. (Before the Police Magistrate, Mr. M. E. Murnin, and Dr. Douglass,)
ASSAULT.-
Charles Ginn was brought before the Court, on remand, for assault and
attempted robbery. It
appeared that on Saturday evening last, between eight and nine o'clock,
the prosecu- trix, Elizabeth Giblett, a girl about twelve years of age,
and her two aunts, were walking in the bush near the Liverpool-road,
when the prisoner started up, and demanded a
bottle of rum which the girl was carrying, saying, "Give me that -
that's nice." She screamed out, and one of the aunts interposed, but
received a slight blow from the prisoner. He ran off', but was
overtaken, and given into custody. On the person of the prisoner, who wore neither coat, shoes, nor stockings, were found £22 16s.
3d. As the evidence of the attempted robbery was not strong enough for
conviction, the prisonor was fined for the assault, 40s., or fourteen
days' imprisonment.
My suspicion is that he died unrecorded, perhaps living on the streets, some time thereafter.
Acknowledgement - I am indebted to Peter Hinchy of Brisbane and Jennifer Clark (nee Ginn) of New Zealand for some of the information appearing here
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